Bait
by GenesisAda
Summary: Once again Naruto found himself being the bait on a mission. Now near the end of it he was having a feeling. A feeling that history had shown meant something was going to go terribly wrong tonight. Slight ItaNaru. Sorta Character Death not Itachi or Naruto . Written for the ItaNaru Swap on LJ.


**Title:** Bait

**Recipient:** Naiya246

**Author:** Adaina

**Rating:** R.

**Pairings:** Slight ItaNaru

**Word Count:** 4085

**Warnings:** Alternate Timline, Ninjaverse, Swearing, A smidge of Fluff, Mentions of violence, Character death (sorta), Mentions of drug and alcohol use

**Summary:** Once again Naruto found himself being the bait on a mission. Now near end of it he was having a feeling. A feeling that history had shown meant something was going to go terribly wrong tonight.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything. The characters hereon belong to their respective owners. No profit is being made from this work.  
**Author's Notes:** Betaed by the ever so lovely HostileCrayon who is awesome and full of win! It took forever to beat the muse and plot bunny into submission and this is what came out. It wasn't exactly how I initially imagined it but I think it works better this way. So I hope you like it. There is a possibility of a sequel at some point but this is definitely its own piece.

* * *

Naruto looked in the mirror and sighed. He had been on this mission for three weeks now and tonight was the most important night of the mission. He should be excited that it was almost over but he wasn't. He couldn't be excited because he had _ a feeling_. Nothing good had ever happened when he had this feeling. He could list every bad thing that had happened in his life and each one was preceded by this damnable feeling. Some had joked that he was psychic but Naruto didn't think he was. Some had said it was just coincidence but Naruto didn't buy that either. He felt like the evidence spoke for itself.

With another sigh Naruto turned away from the mirror and looked at his outfit for the night. He should have been ready by now and he was running out of time. Everything boiled down to this moment and he really just wanted to hide under the bed. A bitter laugh escaped his lips at that thought. When had he become such a coward?

A knock on the door brought Naruto out of his reverie. He knew it was his ANBU partner. One learned quickly when involved in the shinobi lifestyle that it was never wise to sneak up on each other. He called to his partner to enter and turned back to the mirror; watching warily as the other man entered his room. He was 99% sure it was truly his friend but you always had to be cautious. A subtle gesture was made and Naruto relaxed slightly. It was a gesture that they had come up with years ago when they had first been partnered together in ANBU that let the other know they were real. It was something that had saved their lives on numerous occasions.

"You're not ready yet?" There was a hint of surprise as well as something else in that voice. It was an unasked question that Naruto heard all too clearly.

"I..." He hesitated for just a second. He didn't want to worry his friend but it would be foolish not to tell him. "I have a feeling."

His partner tensed, well aware of the implications; the man had witnessed and lived through (albeit in some cases barely) all the things that had happened when Naruto had 'a feeling'. "Fuck."

"Yeah, that sums it up real good."

"This is a bad time to have a feeling."

"I know that," Naruto said with a roll to his eyes.

"Should we postpone the operation tonight?"

Naruto turned around so fast he stumbled, staring incredulously at the man. "Did the great Uchiha Itachi just suggest we postpone the operation? The world must be ending."

Itachi gave Naruto a baleful look before sitting down on the bed in the room. Naruto turned back to the mirror, staring once again at his reflection. "Itachi, you know we can't do that. This is the night that Shikamaru predicted when the killer would strike. If we postpone an innocent could be killed and we would have to wait another four weeks. Feeling or not, we have to do this."

"Shikamaru and his team were called back to Konoha on an emergency mission by order of the Hokage. Team Yamato is taking their place as your backup."

Once again Naruto whirled around. "What?"

"You heard me the first time Naruto."

A string of very impressive curses flew from Naruto's lips. How could that crazy old bat call Shikamaru away? This was his damn baby. His team had been the first to respond to the request from the Land of Spring. He and Itachi had been called in because it was determined that their skills were needed.

There had been a rash of murders in a fairly large city near Yukigakure. The local authorities had tried to capture the killer initially but had called in Shinobi help from the nearby ninja village when the body count had hit ten. Five bodies later and Yukigakure had conceded that it needed help. They had reached out to Konoha and Team Asuma, led by Kakashi, was sent to investigate and provide aid. It had only taken Shikamaru one week to figure out the killer's pattern, that the perpetrator was a rogue ninja, and to formulate a plan. Naruto had invested three weeks into this mission, following Shikamaru's plan to a T and now it was about to blow up in their faces because Tsunade was a drunken idiot.

"I suppose that explains the feeling," Naruto said.

"I can only hope so," was Itachi's reply.

"And why is that?"

"I think you know why."

And he did. The first time he had this feeling was the day the Uchiha clan had staged their coup d'état. Itachi had been set to slaughter his clan by order of the Sandaime Hokage. To this day they didn't know why, but the Uchichas had accelerated their time table and attacked. It had been a devastating and bloody battle. Naruto didn't remember much of it because several members of the clan had tried to break his seal and use the Kyuubi to help them win. Itachi had said that when he finally found him he was covered with red chakra with two chakra tails swaying behind him and a pile of corpses next to him. Itachi had brought him back to his senses but not before Naruto had left a nasty chakra burn across his back.

The second time he had the feeling was during the cluster fuck of a mission to Wave country. He had the feeling again during the Chuunin exams. The village had been severely damaged and the Sandaime had lost his life. He had the feeling again when Sasuke had tried to defect from the village. Sasuke had put a hole through his chest but he had still dragged the bastard back to the village where it was discovered he had a curse mark courtesy of Orochimaru.

The list went on and on. Akatsuki kidnapped Gaara and he died. Jiraiya tried to get more information on Akatsuki and was killed by the leader, Pein. Sasuke, once again, succumbed to the curse mark and nearly killed Itachi. Pein attacked the village and destroyed it; taking so many lives. Tobi started the Fourth great shinobi war. Each one of these events had been preceded by a feeling.

Naruto clenched his fist and went back to the mirror. "Okay let's do this."

Itachi activated his Sharingan and watched as Naruto slowly changed. This was a technique that Naruto had developed and, so far, he was the only one who could use it. It was similar to a henge but instead of one big change, Naruto made subtle changes to whatever he needed; the shape of the eyes, the angle of a chin, the texture of hair. It took a large chakra store because you had to have a slight but constant flow of chakra going at all times. It also required perfect chakra control for that reason. Naruto had it all down to an exact science so that when he did this, it was undetectable even by a sensory type ninja. Itachi, genius that he was, could only understand some of the mechanics of it all. He just knew that when you traced Naruto's chakra flow after he had created a new look that you could not tell that there was any kind of jutsu activated at all.

"Flatten your nose one centimeter more," Itachi said and nodded when he saw Naruto had done what he asked. For missions that required Naruto to have a long term identity Itachi would activate the Sharingan and copy the initial image that Naruto had created so that each time he changed, Itachi would be there to make any corrections.

They continued in this vein until Itachi gave his approval. Naruto started changing into his outfit for the night while going over the plan again in his head. He had established himself as a rich man's boy toy who loved to drink and party. His "benefactor", was touring The Land of Spring and had brought him along. So every night for the past three weeks he had gone out and partied making sure to cover all the zones that the killer frequented based on Shikamaru's analysis. Tonight was the night that the killer would pick his next victim and, if all went according to plan, that victim would be him.

Naruto took one last look in the mirror and was satisfied. He could do this, feeling be damned!

Suddenly arms embraced him and he was pulled back into Itachi's chest. "Be careful tonight Naru," Itachi whispered in his ear, causing a shiver to race up his spine.

"You only call me that when you are worried."

"I always worry about you," was whispered in his ear before he pulled away. "I'm going to go over the last minute details with the team and assign them their zones. I'll be Zone One. Give us fifteen minutes to get into position."

Naruto nodded and watched Itachi walk out the room. He could do this. He COULD do this. Maybe if he repeated it enough, that feeling would go away.

* * *

He had been trolling the bars and clubs in Zone Four for about two hours. He drank, danced, and pretended to have a good time. To the casual observer, he appeared to already be well on his way to absolutely, black out, "did I do that?" drunk. He was sober of course. He had learned early on in the mission that it was easier to coat the alcohol in small amounts of chakra (which broke down the components of the alcohol making it less effective as well as well as slowing absorption down) than to use a substitution technique. The one time he tried that ended badly with him substituting his drink for toilet water. The memory of it still made me gag.

Naruto glanced at this watch and decided it was time to move on to the next zone. As he exited the club and walked to the next location, he idly wondered who was covering this zone. The support team had several objectives. They were to watch over Naruto, look for any suspicious activity, alert the other team members when Naruto left the zone, and then to keep watch over the zone to make sure the killer didn't arrive later.

Zone Four was a relatively small zone and Naruto figured that Sakura was probably in charge of it. She didn't really have any kind of technique that would help her safely and effectively cover a large zone. Zone Two and Three would go to Sai and Captain Yamato because they both had good techniques to watch large areas. Between Sai's drawings and Yamato's wood clones that could communicate with him without being dispelled, Naruto doubted anything would get past them. He knew Itachi was in Zone One which meant that Zone Five, the zone he was heading for, was probably manned by Sasuke.

Naruto frowned. He really needed to not think about this and keep his mind focused on the mission. It wasn't easy though. He and Sasuke used to be rivals bordering on friends when the Uchiha Coup happened. Something had changed in Sasuke that day. Some kind of madness had started growing and Itachi had been powerless to stop it. No one knew what to do for the young Uchiha. He started to blame Naruto for his family's death, then Itachi, and soon the whole village. Rivalry had morphed into complete hatred. When they were teamed together with Sakura and Kakashi it had been catastrophic to say the least.

It wasn't long after the mission from wave that he had been pulled from the team and replaced by Sai. Sometimes he wondered if things would have been different if he stayed. Would he have noticed that Sasuke had been cursed sooner rather later? Would Sasuke have stilled tried to leave the village? Would he have still had a chidori rammed through his chest? Shaking his head slightly, he put it all out of his mind. All the "ifs" and "what could haves" in the world didn't matter. Now did.

* * *

Naruto was starting to worry. He had been to all the designated bars and clubs throughout the zones and hadn't been approached at all. Had they miscalculated? Had he played the part of bait wrong? Was someone right now being murdered because he had fucked something up? He had one last bar to check in Zone One and he hoped that the psycho killer would be there. Surely this would be the one. As he walked towards his destination, the feeling increased in intensity but he could do nothing but ignore it. He had a killer to catch and by all that was holy, like ramen, he was going to catch him.

He staggered into the dingy, hole in the wall bar and was greeted by the bartender. He had frequented this bar several times during the mission as it was where the first body was found. It wasn't a high end bar by any means but if you wanted a cheap drink and fix of something else then this was your place of choice. Naruto had established that this persona had a bit of habit and this was the only place one could go to get the drug of choice he pretended to be hooked to. So he wasn't surprised that he was handed a tiny bag along with his drink.

Another nod to the bartender and a few bills later found Naruto in the bathroom sans his drink pretending to get high. He looked at himself in the mirror and proceeded to adjust his eyes some more to show that he was being effected by the drug. He also added some slight irritation to his nose since he had pretended to inhale it. He smirked a little at his reflection. He had this down to a damn art form. He wasn't sure he should be proud of that. With a slight shrug to his reflection he sauntered out of the bathroom and back to the bar grabbing his glass and chugging the contents. This proved to be his one mistake of the night. His vision blurred, his skin felt hot, the room was spinning, and unknown hands were guiding him…somewhere.

At that moment the feeling he had exploded and that's when he understood. He hadn't caught the killer. The killer had caught him. He was drugged, defenseless, and his backup wasn't coming. He was fucked.

* * *

To say Itachi was pissed would be an understatement. There were no words in existence that could describe his anger right now. He had been on edge all night because of what Naruto said and then his stupid little brother had gone and fucked everything up. Naruto had a feeling and they had lost him.

"Yamato you are to keep Sasuke detained until I get back. Sai and Sakura you are with me."

"But Captain, the city is so large, how will we find him in time?" Sakura asked. She was equal parts worried for Naruto and angry at Sasuke.

Sai was drawing various creatures that could help speed up their search. He saw a nod from Itachi indicating that he had correctly anticipated one of the captain's next moves.

"We aren't going to search the whole city. We are going to narrow it down to the known locations where the victims went missing from."

Itachi pulled out the map Shikamaru had made and looked at it with the team. Yamato had already left with the subdued Sasuke for their rooms. Itachi wished he could have Yamato's help but knew that he needed him to keep Sasuke secured for the time being. Stupid Sasuke. Stupid, stupid Sasuke. How could he…? No he cut that thought off. He didn't have time for this. He had to find Naruto. Naruto had said he was having a feeling, damn it!

Not now, he silently told himself. Focus. And that's when it hit him. The victims had gone missing from several bars and clubs but their bodies had all been found near very specific ones; four very specific ones in Zone One.

"He's there," he said jabbing at a location before taking off.

"How do you know?" He heard Sakura shout after him. He didn't have time to explain though. He needed to save Naruto.

It didn't take him long to arrive at his destination. It took him even less time to subdue the bouncers and trapped everyone in the room but the bartender in a genjutsu. Sakura and Sai secured the room while Itachi turned his attention towards the bartender. Itachi wasn't quite sure what the man saw in his eyes but he was spilling his guts within seconds.

The man had barely finished his last sentence before Itachi was racing up the hidden stairs behind the bar. He exited the stairs into a hall with several doors took a second to try and sense out the right door.

There was a loud crash from a door at the end of the hall on the right. A scream of agony reverberated throughout the hall. Itachi had reached the door in seconds only to have to jump out of the way as a large man went flying through it. The man struggled to stand and paled when he noticed Itachi's glowing, red eyes glaring down at him with such malice. Then the man's world went black as he fell under the power of the Sharingan.

Itachi took one more second ensure that the man would not get back up before running into the room. Upon seeing Naruto, the knot of tension he hadn't even noticed loosened. Naruto was okay. Naruto was safe. Naruto was in his arms? When did that happen?

"Itachi, you're crushing me."

Itachi chuckled before loosening his arms. Naruto was safe. "You are not allowed to be bait anymore."

"You say that every time and yet I always end up as the bait."

"Well I mean it this time."

Naruto just smiled up at him. He then proceeded to pass out.

* * *

Itachi was pacing outside Naruto's door. Sakura was in the room with him now extracting the drug that had been slipped into his drink from his body. All Sakura would tell him was that it was some kind of new chakra based drug that had activated when Naruto had used chakra to protect against the alcohol. She didn't know much more about it and it was proving to be hard to remove. The saving grace for Naruto was that, with the help of Kyuubi, they had managed to isolate most of the drug in one area. Some of it had slipped into his system before he could isolate it which allowed the killer to get the jump on him.

Itachi sighed and sat down against the wall going over everything that had happened. The night had been running smoothly and Itachi had allowed himself to forget that Naruto had said he had a feeling. He listened on to the transmissions as Naruto moved from zone to zone and as the team reported nothing unusual. Then Sasuke had come over the line calling for backup. The suspect had been spotted he said. All posts had been abandoned and they rushed to Sasuke's location only to find nothing. Fearing the worse they had split up to search for Sasuke and Naruto. Could the killer be that strong to take out Sasuke and Naruto?

Yamato had found Sasuke twenty minutes later. At first he had pretended that he had been attacked and Naruto had been taken. It didn't take long, however, for them to realize that had never happened. Sasuke had been playing them for his own sick amusement. Long gone was the little boy who looked up to his brother and who smiled at the littlest things. Before him stood a shadow of a man consumed by darkness and hatred. It was times like this, staring at this _thing_ that wore his brother's face, that he wondered how different things would have been if he had been given his mission to kill his family a day earlier. If he had massacred his kin and left the village to join Akatsuki as was planned by the Hokage and his advisors, would this creature that looked like his brother exist?

"Captain," Yamato's voice pulled him from his thoughts and he wondered at the tone.

"What did you find?"

"Sasuke is missing."

Itachi's head snapped up. "What did you say?" he hissed out between his teeth.

"I turned my back on him for one second and all that was left of him was skin."

Itachi's eyes widened. No, it couldn't be.

"He shed his skin."

"Only Orochimaru can do that!"

"On our last mission, we were all separated. Sasuke was the last to be found."

"How long was he missing for."

"Three hours."

Itachi scrubbed his face and willed his brain to just stop. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about it at all. And yet it was all he could think about. Was it possible? Had he survived quietly all these years? Could Orochimaru have taken over his brother's body?

"Have Sai send a class one emergency message to Lady Tsunade with your findings. If Sasuke has truly been taken over the village needs to prepare for the worst."

"Yes, sir," Yamato said before hurrying to Sai's room.

Itachi leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. It was all just too much to deal with. He just couldn't deal with this. He needed his best friend. He needed Naruto.

* * *

Sakura exited Naruto's room an hour later. She was pale and drenched with sweat from over exertion but she had a faint smile on her face. "I was able to remove all of it from his system. He just needs to rest some and he'll be okay. Go in, he's asking for you."

Sakura watched as Itachi rushed into the room and smirked. When would those two get a clue? She walked to her room for a much needed shower and rest. She'd think about this later and maybe she'd get Ino to help her.

"Itachi," God Naruto could sound like a five year old.

"I said no."

"But I don't want to stay in bed!"

"Sakura says you need to rest."

"But I'm not tired!"

"I don't care."

"You are so mean."

"Hn."

"Oh no! Don't you dare! You haven't used Uchiha speak on me in years!"

"Hn."

"Wipe that Uchiha smirk off your face, asshole!"

Itachi wasn't sure what made him say it; perhaps it was because Naruto brought the child out in him, but he put on the most infuriating smirk he could and said two words. "Make me."

He had been expecting a punch or a kick. He hadn't been expecting Naruto to grab his shirt and pull him down into a kiss. Turnabout was fair play and so Itachi deepened the kiss expecting Naruto to shove him away. Once again Naruto responded opposite of Itachi's expectations and pulled the man down on to the bed.

The need for air had them breaking apart, staring at each other with wondering eyes. "How long Itachi?"

"Since forever."

"That is the sappiest piece of shit I have ever heard." Naruto said with a snort.

"Get some rest Naruto. We can talk about this in the morning."

Naruto cuddled up with Itachi having decided he was letting his partner go anywhere. "Hey Itachi?"

"Hmm?"

"Since forever too."

Naruto could feel Itachi's smile against his neck and felt the man's arms tighten ever so slightly. Naruto sighed happily and drifted off to sleep free of _that feeling _and full of a completely different one.

Who knows what tomorrow would bring. There were so many things to deal with and Naruto still didn't know about Sasuke and the new threat he posed. After all that Naruto had done for peace, Itachi felt that he deserved this small reprieve. Tomorrow they would talk. Tomorrow they would grieve for the little boy that once was and for the man he could have been. Tomorrow they would try to move on past the pain. Tomorrow there would be love and friendship. Tomorrow everything would change and yet stay the same. Tomorrow.

-End-

* * *

AN: FF keeps eating my formatting. DX


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